Taking the Next Step

A view of Mount St. Helens from the hummocks.

My hike near Mount St. Helens 11 days ago began last summer, and it's not over yet.

On a Father's Day trip to the mountain in 2015, my dad and I found some information about the trails in the area. After last year's successful hikes at Mount Rainier, Olympic National Park, and the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, I spent part of the winter planning excursions in the Pacific Northwest for this summer. The details about the Mount St. Helens trails provided a number of great options.

The hike from the hummocks northwest of the mountain to Johnston Ridge seemed particularly interesting, and I quickly settled on it. By Christmas, my mom and my cousin were on board for the hike.

As it moved from the Toutle River Valley up Johnston Ridge, the Boundary-Hummocks Trail displayed a surprising range of features and ecosystem types. The hummocks, formed by deposits left from the massive lahars (mudflows) triggered by the volcano's 1980 eruption, contained lush ponds shaded by alder. The ponds provided homes for beavers and birds and fed thriving thickets of ferns, cattails, and horsetails. Below the hummocks, the Toutle River continued its task of cutting through the sediment deposits.

Johnston Ridge, which received much of the 1980 blast, featured different terrain. A few trees had returned, but much of the land was open, giving us a great view to watch the day's clouds shuffle around the mountain. The clouds became the stars of the hike. They began to clear at about 9:30 a.m. Around noon, they re-formed near the mountain's middle like a Hula-Hoop. By the late afternoon, they covered the summit. Rather than taking away from the view though, the clouds seemed to enhance it with various personalities. Last year, during the hot, dry summer, we saw no clouds around the mountain. The clear view was fantastic, but this year's clouds made for many unique perspectives not possible without them.

When the hiked ended, I felt like I knew Mount St. Helens more intimately. I'd walked in two very different environments in the span of just a few miles, and they had revealed a lot about what has been happening around the mountain in the last 36 years.

In truth, this one trail represents just the tip of the iceberg with regard to the network of paths around the mountain, so an adventure that began in 2015 and continued this year has plenty of next steps.

There and Back Again

The beautiful blue of the Quinault River.

Outdoor adventures can have unintended destinations, and going places can take us back.

For Father's Day 2015, my dad, my grandma, and I drove to Mount St. Helens. The trip went so well that we decided to replicate the experience with a new destination this year. We considered a drive to Mount Rainier, but my dad settled on Donkey Creek in the Olympic Peninsula. This wasn't a random decision. He'd spent time there with his parents on hunting trips when he was younger, and he wanted to see the area again. Going there would be a new experience for me, so his suggestion sounded good.

Instead of taking the trip on Father's Day, we made the drive on June 4, which allowed us to take advantage of the peninsula's cooler temperatures on a hot day; and rather than taking Highway 101 up the peninsula, we cut through the Wynoochee River Valley for a more leisurely and scenic route. Dad had plenty of time to observe and discuss how the area had changed over the years. The day was clear, and we caught glimpses of the Olympic Mountains.

Turning onto the Donkey Creek road brought together different points in time. I'd never seen the area, so it all should have been new. However, the time Dad and Grandma had spent there in the past came back as they talked about places they'd camped and hunted, so I felt a surprising familiarity with these fresh surroundings. While they noted the changes to the area, I began to think about how we were there both in the present and back in an earlier time simultaneously. The two periods meshed for a powerful experience.

Emerging at the Newberry Creek entrance, we realized how close we were to Lake Quinault and made the quick decision to take the loop around the lake. Coincidently, on June 4, 2015, my mom and I had hiked the Willaby Creek Trail on the lake's south side, so the return exactly one year later made for a nice bookend journey. On the drive around the lake, we found great views of the Olympics and the cool, blue Quinault River. We also saw a cow elk and her calf and stopped to take in the sight and sound of a waterfall.

It's great to know where you want to go, but leaving some room for the unexpected can take you just about anywhere in time and space.

Like Bottles on the Beach

View of Grays Harbor from Bottle Beach State Park.

You can try all you want to make something become what it isn't, but the secret is knowing it for what it really is.

I know Grays Harbor pretty well. I grew up in the surrounding area, made plenty of stops in the cities of Aberdeen and Hoquiam, and drove through many times to points beyond like Grayland, Ocean Shores, and the Olympic Peninsula. However, two weeks ago, I found two parts of the harbor I hadn't previously discovered. They were right under my nose, and they gave me a new appreciation for an area that has disappointed many people's attempts to make it more than it is.

For this summer's adventure list, I slotted exploring the Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge into the leadoff spot. Best known for its annual shorebird festival, the refuge is otherwise largely overlooked. In fact, I'd driven past it many times, but until May 17, my knowledge of its location had remained vague. As it turned out, the refuge wasn't hard to find.

Migrating shorebirds typically move through Grays Harbor in late April and early May, so I knew I was a little late for them (mostly, I wanted to explore the refuge), but even without many of its star attractions, the refuge didn't disappoint. Sandpiper Trail, a boardwalk path running through the refuge, revealed a diverse ecosystem with tidal areas and thickets of alder, willow, salmonberry, and elderberry. Many of the shorebirds had already moved north, but the songbirds, including cliff swallows, marsh wrens, and goldfinches came out in force. My mom and I also ran into two members of the refuge management team, and they showed us some Caspian terns and a black-bellied plover. One of the women suggested we go to Bottle Beach State Park on the south side of the harbor, saying we might see more birds there.

Although seeing shorebirds hadn't been the main goal of the trip, we decided to find Bottle Beach. Like the wildlife refuge, the state park wasn't difficult to find--right of the highway in plain sight. Despite that, neither of us had even known it existed prior to our conversation with the refuge manager. The beach soon showed itself to be a hidden treasure. Empty of people and nestled into the cove near Ocosta, the beach contained an active group of shorebirds, including more black-bellied plovers and a host of red knots, as well as a spectacular view of the Olympic Mountains. My mom and I capped the trip with lunch, ice cream, and saltwater taffy in Westport, and we left the harbor with the feeling that we'd come to know this familiar body of water much better.

At one of the informative sites on Bottle Beach, we learned that Grays Harbor had once been earmarked as a port site that could rival San Francisco. The silty harbor had other ideas though. While it does a fair amount of shipping business, it isn't deep enough to be a major port. I wouldn't trade things like Bottle Beach or the Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge for that anyway. They are much more true to what the area is.

Recently, some have tried to turn Grays Harbor into a main coal and oil shipping terminal, but those efforts have met fierce resistance from the local communities, and the fight against the projects makes perfect sense when you really know the harbor.

Punch in the Nose

Some news hits you right in the face.

Last month, I was devastated by the reports that white-nose syndrome (WNS) had come to Washington state. The disease, which kills bats, had been previously limited to the eastern United States after being introduced from Europe.

Although the prospect of WNS coming to the Pacific Northwest had been a real concern, I figured it would take time to cross the Rocky Mountains state by state. The stunning news that a bat thirty miles from Seattle had been found with the disease infuriated me. WNS has wiped out bat colonies in the east and now has a gateway to do the same in the west.

The most enraging part of the WNS story is how irresponsible we have been. People spread the disease by carrying it from cave to cave. We have known this for years, yet we have not taken the necessary precaution of banning cave exploration. Now, because someone failed to decontaminate their equipment before entering a cave in Washington, my home region (and the surrounding area) risks losing our amazing bats, which are so important to containing insect populations.

I used to be filled with happiness whenever I saw a bat, but now, the sight of them just makes me want to punch people in the nose out of sadness.

A Living Document

Three years after its public release, Blackfish continues adding chapters to its remarkable story, making it one of the most successful and important documentaries in history.

When I blogged about the film in July 2013, Blackfish was pretty much unknown, and it remained that way for months. Showings on CNN brought it widespread attention though, and since then, the film's impact has grown exponentially and unceasingly. The latest chapter in its run is that it can claim some responsibility for ending SeaWorld's orca breeding program.

That's right, two weeks ago, SeaWorld, whose stock has plummeted since the release of Blackfish, announced that it would stop breeding orcas. This means that the orcas currently at SeaWorld will be the last ones there.

After an unheralded beginning, Blackfish has done and continues to do amazing things. It took on a massive industry that almost no one questioned at the time; it brought into the animal-rights movement people who had never considered environmental activism; and it changed public and corporate policy. Animals continue to be used for entertainment, so the film's story is not yet over, and it will be exciting to see what future impacts it has.

Blackfish may not have made a big splash right out the gate, but its rippling influence remains alive and vital.

Dropping Discursive Closure on Science Misinformation

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has dropped the mic on a rapper who claimed Earth is flat, bringing discursive closure to an argument over a long-settled scientific fact.

Dropping the mic, according to the Urban Dictionary, involves "Calling someone out so hard that you just walk away indisputably victorious." Those employing this communication strategy often actually drop a mic or pretend to do so.

In communication terms, dropping the mic represents a form of discursive closure, a concept that refers to a number of strategies designed to end discussions and cut off any further response from others. In short, dropping the mic is a way to end the conversation when the communicator is at an advantage. Traditional forms of discursive closure include naturalization, which is performed when a person says, "That's the way it is," and topical avoidance, which prevents some topics from being discussed.

To see how deGrasse Tyson produces discursive closure by dropping the mic, watch the following video of his appearance on The Nightly Show in January: 

As you can see, deGrasse Tyson uses the mic drop to end the argument he was having with B.o.B about the shape of Earth. The action communicates that B.o.B's opinions will no longer be entertained by deGrasse Tyson. He's also using the communication strategy in an attempt to head off science misinformation in general. Settled scientific fact is left in a position of power, and those who might seek to challenge it are dismissed.

And that's the way it is.

The Irony of Don Henley's "Praying for Rain"

We already know Don Henley as a great singer, musician, and entertainer, but as it turns out, he's also a pretty good rhetorician.

For his latest album, Henley effectively uses a rhetorical-narrative device to draw attention to the issue of global warming. The song, "Praying for Rain," employs irony to question our lack of action in responding to the signals of a warming planet. Check out the song here:

Ironic narratives feature main characters overcome by and unable to affect their situations. In "Praying for Rain," the irony becomes apparent when the first-person narrator, a farmer besieged by drought, says, "We hardly had a winter, had about a week of spring. Crops are burned up in the fields. There's a blanket of dust on everything. The weatherman is saying that there ain't no change in sight. Lord, I've never been a praying man, but I'm saying one tonight." Laying out the drought conditions paints the picture of an overwhelming situation for the farmer. He's never seen anything like it--a common reaction to the extreme weather events generated by global warming; and we know he feels powerless because of his admission that the predicament appears endless. Together, these narrative elements suggest we're listening to an irony, a suspicion confirmed when the man who's never prayed is driven to prayer--ironic indeed.

Action, not prayer, however, is the objective of Henley's irony. The farmer might turn to prayer, but that doesn't end the ironic narrative. In desperate circumstances, all he has is prayer, and the desperation only grows as he repeats that prayer over and over again without receiving any response. That's what we're left with: a powerless man and an unheard echo that remain completely at the mercy of their circumstances. In this way, Henley uses the ironic narrative theme of powerlessness as a call for action. The repeated chorus holds us in the frustration of failing to take action, calling into question all those times when people have actually tried to pray drought away.

We can't choose not to act while action is still possible and then expect that we'll be able to act in desperate circumstances, and Henley has given us the right rhetorical device to hit that realization home.

Publication Celebration

The new year began in a big way for me last week.

A year and a half ago, I blogged about submitting a paper for publication. Following a long process of peer review, I received news on January 4 that the paper has been accepted for publication in the journal, Environmental Communication.

This was huge news. First, the paper will become my first publication. That fact, combined with the hard work that went into it, gave the acceptance letter special meaning. Second, as I blogged about in announcing the submission, the paper makes a contribution to communication theory by providing a way of discovering important discourses about the environment in media.

I am very proud and excited to be published, and I am glad to have the opportunity to help advance our understanding of the environment.

Happy new year, everyone!

Nothing to Next

Every journey might start with a single step, but many steps must follow to ensure the destination is reached.

On December 12, the world took a big first step with the Paris Agreement to address global warming. The agreement represented an important moment, but we have a lot of work ahead to make the most of the accord and expand on its success.

First, the agreement can become a turning point for our planet. After all, the collective decision is historic, bringing together the entire world to address our biggest issue. It's much better than the nothing we had before. Additionally, if the agreement is followed up with meaningful action, it can mark the end of fossil fuels and the full adoption of renewable energy.

On the other hand, the Paris Agreement doesn't contain any binding standards. Also, each country will have to lay out plans to make the agreement reality. Put another way, we have a lot of work to do. The Paris Agreement is big, but it is what we do next that will determine our success.

A first step has been taken on global warming, and we have a long journey ahead before we get where we're going, so let's keep walking.

Big Win for Wildlife

Endangered wildlife scored a historic election victory in Washington state last Tuesday.

In October, I blogged about how I-1401, an initiative meant to combat the trafficking of endangered species, was set to appear on the state's 2015 ballot. It increased penalties for those caught with products from 10 endangered species, and it seemed like a no-brainer yes vote, but in elections, you never count your protected species until the results are in.

As it turns out, I-1401 made history in two very good ways. First, it passed, making Washington the first state to institute such strong punishment for illegal wildlife trafficking. Second, by passing with more than 70 percent of the vote, it became the most popular initiative in Washington's history.

The victory sent a resounding message about the importance of protecting endangered wildlife. It also cleared the way for other states to follow in Washington's footsteps.

The passage of I-1401 reminds us that protecting the environment is a winning effort.